Thursday, June 20, 2013

Life after homicide, Part 2: "She's gonna help you get through it"

Just
over a year later, Rose Holman still says it's hard to believe
her son is gone. Lewis was 21. He was killed in daylight, while
riding in a car near Mills College.

"I
know it, but then I don't," says Holman. "I still feel like
we have had one of our arguments, a falling out. But that sooner or
later we will meet up, at a family gathering or something, and we
will sit down to talk and then we will be past it and move on."

Sooner
or later, maybe much later, it will hit her, though, that there will
be no chance to reconcile with her son, or to watch him become the
man she hoped he would be. And then all the grief will come tumbling
down on top of her again.

That's
what the killing does to survivors. More than 170 killings in 2012
and 2013 in Oakland have left hundreds of family members in our
community, mothers, fathers, children, sisters and brothers, crushed
under the weight of their grief. Over 800 victims since 2006 means
thousands of survivors, thousands of Oaklanders hoping something or
someone will come along and find them and pull them out from under
the rubble of their lives.

For
many, that someone is Marilyn Washington Harris a kind-of one woman
search party. (See: Miss Marilyn.)That something is the Khadafy
Washington Foundation for Non-Violence, the organization Harris
founded in the name of her son, killed in Oakland in 2000. Harris is
an emergency responder. In some ways she is not unlike a police
officer or firefighter or paramedic: where others might run away, she
steps into the most tense, fraught, sometimes still dangerous
situations to bring safety and healing to survivors, to protect them
from further harm, neglect and exploitation in their sudden grief.

"A
woman at work told me I should talk to her," says Holman. "She
said, 'She's gonna help you get through it.' I didn't know what she
meant at the time."

At
first, Holman said she resented this woman who was stepping into her
life at the worst possible time, telling her what needed to be done,
what business had to be attended to. Because there are many things to
do when you are a survivor of a homicide victim, many people to deal
with: police, coroners, funeral directors, city clerks. Suddenly
there is much business to attend to, just as your state of mind has
been shattered.

Soon,
says Homan, her feelings about Harris changed.

"Because
she showed me that love," says Holman. "She said, 'I
understand where you're coming from, and you can't do it alone.' She
has helped me understand a lot of things."

Rose
is now a volunteer with the Khadafy Washington Foundation. And the
Foundation has found a gem, a self-professed lover of paper work.

"I
love organization," says Holman. "Having things together
when people need them, that's just who I am." Now, on a
daily basis, she sees Harris working with families, doing for them
what she did for Homan in her time of need.

"What
I love most about her is she'll let you know the consequences. She
says, 'If you are a responsible adult like you say you are, you need
to consider this.' She will take you step by step and show you how to
do it. If there's someplace you need to go, she'll get you
transportation, or take you. I see her working with these young kids
who have lost a father or mother."

Holman
says she couldn't understand how one person could do so much.

"I
saw her at an event," she says, "and I sat
down and talked to her and asked her if she needed help. I wanted to
take care of her, because I saw the work she was doing. She needed
help with the computer. I'm a computer nut, put me with a computer
and I'm happy."

Rose
Holman will be at the annual Khadafy Foundation for Non-Violence
Mothers & Families Luncheon, Saturday, June 29th, at the Jack
London Inn. For more info, go to the
event's Facebook page.